Mental Health

The long tall and the short of it

Lester

Electromagnetic Spectrum

“Everybody feels that way sometimes,” they say. “Everything’s a spectrum, and everybody’s on it.”

Tell that to the seven-foot-tall woman and the two-foot-tall man.

Yes, there is a range of people between those record-holders and the average 5′ 8″ for men, and the average 5′ 3” for women. Just as there is a range from the average IQ of 100 to YoungHoon Kim’s 276.  But to call those ranges “spectrums” is to paltrify the social challenges unique to those outliers. At some point the term “unusual” has to be acknowledged, along with associated difficulties and inconveniences.

The same can be said for autism and ADHD.

Speaking of which, last fall I posted about an initial diagnosis of “too old, successful, and respected by your peers to have autism or ADHD” (Good Enough, Close Enough Isn’t), and the challenges of caring deeply in a compromising world. There’s only so much that behavioral therapy—the only therapy available within our insurance network—can do for someone who perceives the world much differently than his neighbors.

So last month I bypassed those geographical limits, researched adult autism professionals within the US, and had an evaluation at my own expense. “We don’t guarantee a diagnosis as autistic,” they said. “Good,” I thought.

Let me compare the two evaluations, the “too old and successful” clinical psychologist, versus the “we don’t guarantee” one.

The first had me fill out two questionnaires and my wife fill out another, then spent a half an hour interviewing me, followed by another half hour a week later, in which he gave a short oral summary: “You have lots of markers, but I see children who can’t even speak, and others who literally can’t sit still.” He ended with an off-hand comment that he hadn’t even heard of “masking” until two weeks prior. A term I hadn’t at all mentioned.

The second also had me fill out a pair of questionnaires and my wife fill out another. Then she held two one-hour interviews, followed by another hour a week later, in which she walked me through the DSM-5 criteria, point by point. The adult autism diagnosis was undeniable. I’m reevaluating my history of outsidership and rootless shame from that perspective and it fits. It doesn’t fix things, but it lets me let myself off the hook for some and have a better idea of moving forward. And there are support groups and therapy available.

Why bother telling you all of this? Because I’m 70, I come from a time when such things weren’t discussed, and I’ve stubborned my way through a life with too much unnecessary misery.

Maybe you’re stubborning your own way through your own misery. If so, there’s no shame in self-discovery and therapy. And chances are that your example will lead other people in your circle to shed the stigma and find some answers of their own.

Stairway or Highway to Where?

Lester
Pilar Romero Meza, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Last night on YouTube I listened to an operatic singer and teacher reacting to her first hearing of the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven.” As a singer, she focused mostly on Robert Plant’s performance, of course. The emotion of it, conveyed by his masterful technique. (The sheer length of time he could hold a note without breathing!) But she also had much to say about the beauty of the song’s overall composition, its slow build from a restrained wistfulness to an eventual crescendo of wild energy.

And the power of the drums. Which don’t enter the song until about minute four of its full eight minutes. I hadn’t realized what a legend John Bonham is among drummers. His inventiveness and performance in this song prove why.

Last night I heard “Stairway to Heaven” for the umpteenth time in my life, but this time with a deeper appreciation for the creativity and expertises threaded all through it. This time I was pretty much awestruck, misty eyed even, at the sheer creative beauty accomplished by these four human beings.

Last night I went to bed feeling better about the world.

This morning I woke to the news that my nation had performed a wide-scale military strike on Venezuela, blown up parts of Caracas, and captured their President and First Lady. That we’ll be “running their country” for the foreseeable future. A land and resource grab under the pretense of a drug war. Or smoke and mirrors to hide the Epstein files.

So much for my feeling better about the world. Today I’m once again heartbroken, frustrated, and angry.

I find myself perpetually confused that the human race can contain at the same time people of such creativity, and those of such destruction. How we continually put into positions of power people who add nothing to human accomplishment, but whose only skills are hoarding, destroying, and propagating the myth that they’re the cream of the crop.

These words don’t express the depth of my dejection right now.

There are old friends and family members whom I’ll never again be able to look at in the same light. Whose innermost hearts have been revealed, and I’ll never again be able to give them my trust.

Many of them are Evangelical Christians. Some of them even pastors. But their religion has proven itself a servant to their politics, and their reading of holy texts a servant of that debased religion. To paraphrase the Hebrews 11:1 of my youth, “Now faith is the [rationalization] of things hoped for, the [pretense] of things not seen.”

I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the fact that some people are so full of goodwill and creation, and others so tightfisted and destructive. How desperately ignorance protects itself from enlightenment. How tradition, the peer pressure of the dead, is so often used to excuse hatefulness toward the outsider.

At times like these, I wonder what’s the point of existence. If we aren’t here to help one another—everyone another—then why bother.

I suppose because of “Stairway to Heaven”s. At least until the last copy of that masterpiece is buried in the rubble of war, along with so much other art, as sacrifices to the merchant princes who would be gods.

Span or Tandem?

Lester

Image by bafritch from Pixabay

In my head are two horses. One is a creative force, prone to enthusiasms, award-winningly clever, easily bored, easily dispirited. The other a disciplined adult, clear-eyed, trained as an editor and educator, tempered by experience. Faithful, honest, enduring.

As a writer, I’ve learned to nurture the first when starting a project. After all, it’s the one that came up with the idea in the first place, the one with a view beyond the horizon.

And when the creative horse falters, the disciplined one nickers encouragement: “This really is a genius concept, and only you can envision where it’s headed. Only you can carry it through.” But once the first horse is knackered, it’s the disciplined one who analyzes the product, polishes the language, fills in any holes, and trots it out for others’ feedback, before carrying it over the finish line. (Meanwhile, the first horse is dreaming up something new.)

As to the metaphor, I’m unsure whether span or tandem best suits. Are the two horses walking side-by-side in span the whole time, or am I switching the lead horse in a tandem fashion?

Whichever. The point is that there are two very different horses in my head, working together to write things. And of late they’re being forced to haul two very different loads in the same wagon.

One is a load of joy. Not just from creating my own games, essays, and poems, but also celebrating and promoting other people’s creations. It’s fascinated by well-crafted things, from a clever choice of words, to the perfectly timed rotation of a microwave. (Have you ever noticed that punching the “30 second” button brings your coffee cup handle conveniently back to where it started?)  It stands in  awe of the transcendent art of humankind. And of the simple kindnesses shared.

The other is a load of horror. That while some create beauty, others build bombs. That a millenia-old sculpture can be forever destroyed in seconds. That a museum’s worth of art and knowledge can be crushed and burned in minutes. That a hospital devoted to healing can be targeted for cannonade. And all at the direction of a few highly placed people, either hoarding wealth or seeking to leave their mark on history. Those few, and the many they convince to support them, through fear or greed (which is just another type of fear).

Beauty is difficult and ephemeral. Brutality is easy and lasting. And I can’t champion the one without actively opposing the other.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that if you’ve noticed my social media lurching from announcements about new games to shaming or lampooning tyranny, it’s the same two horses as always.

The nation is just on a really rocky path right now.

Good Enough Close Enough Isn’t

Lester

I just came back from a session with a behavioral therapist I see on and off. Last time was months ago, before my autism/ADHD evaluation.

I Iet her know the psychiatrist’s conclusions (forgive my summarizing them here if you’ve seen an earlier post), which were: (1) lots of autism markers, but he sees kids who are worse; (2) lots of ADHD markers, but he sees kids who are worse; (3) the lifetime of feeling “odd man out” is from being bright and well educated and (4) probably also because of childhood trauma. Basically, then: You’re 69 y.o., and accomplished and respected by your peers, so you can’t be autistic or have ADHD. He also brought up the word “masking”—a term he’d heard of only a month before—I’m guessing to forestall any reponse I might make. Not that I can think that fast (a trait of autistic people, I’ve been told).

Note: That long paragraph is not the point of this post, just some background.

The point of this post is that when I told my counselor, “Things make so much more sense, and much of the past quits hurting, when I look back from the standpoint of autism and ADHD,” she nodded. And then she said something that brought tears to my eyes, “ADHD people are intense by nature. That passion is part of who you are.”

Something clicked.

I’ve never been satisfied with a half-assed job. Especially a half-assed work of art. “Good enough, close enough” makes me crazy. It’s why I’ve won awards in my various careers.

But more significantly, for some years now, I’ve been on the outs with my siblings—several of them pastors—because I cannot reconcile their professing service to Christ, with their service and praise for Donald Trump. Like them, I was raised Evangelical Christian, but if Truth is Truth, it shouldn’t be sacrificed for expendiency.

Our father says, “Be reasonable. Families sometimes disagree on politics.” I say, “This isn’t politics. It’s ethics. It’s morals. It’s finding a way to rationalize evil.”

I loathe bullies. And their toadies even more. Ever since childhood, I’ve fought for the disadvantaged, and in adulthood I’ve asked those victims to teach me when I overstep, how best to be an ally.

It’s not that I believe everything is binary black-and-white right-or-wrong. It’s that the best thing evident deserves my best efforts, and that includes striving to be better.

“Why can’t you just get along?”

Because that’s not how people with ADHD are made.